ossible to describe the significance of
his movement. It suggested the sudden rousing of a real fighting dog that
had been disturbed in some peaceful pursuit. He was not noisy, he did not
even look angry. He was just ready.

"I guess you ought to know, Nevil Steyne," he said with emphasis. Then he
turned his head and looked away down the street, as the clatter of hoofs
and rattle of wheels reached the hotel. And for the second time within a
few minutes, trouble, such as only Western men fully understand, was
staved off by a more important interruption.

A team and buckboard dashed up to the hotel. Dan Somers, the sheriff, and
Lal Price, the Land Agent, were in the conveyance, and as they drew up,
one of the horses dropped to the ground in its harness. The men, watching
these two plainsmen scrambling from the vehicle, knew that life and death
alone could have sent them into town at a pace sufficient to kill one of
their horses.

"Boys!" cried the sheriff at once. "Who's for it? Those durned Injuns are
out; they're gittin' round Jason's place. I'm not sure but the woods are
fired a'ready. They've come from the south, I guess. They're Rosebuds.
Ther's old man Jason and his missis; and ther's the gals--three of 'em.
We can't let 'em----"

Seth interrupted him.

"And we ain't going to," he observed. He knew, they all knew, what the
sheriff would have said.

Seth's interruption was the cue for suggestions. And they came with a
rush, which is the way with men such as these, all eager and ready to help
in the rescue of a white family from the hands of a common foe. There was
no hesitation, for they were most of them old hands in this Indian
business, and, in the back recesses of their brains, each man held
recollections of past atrocities, too hideous to be contemplated calmly.

Those who were later with their breakfast now swelled the crowd on the
verandah. The news seemed to have percolated through to the rest of the
town, for men were gathering on all sides, just as men gather in civilized
cities on receipt of news of national importance. They came at once to the
central public place. The excitement had leapt with the suddenness of a
conflagration, and, like a conflagration, there would be considerable
destruction before it died down. The Indians in their savage temerity
might strike Beacon Crossing. Once the Indians were loose it was like the
breaking of a tidal wave on a low shore.

The sheriff was the man they al